Guest Post: Easy vs Right by Charlie Blac

Thank you DJ Charlie Blac for this great guest blog post… find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Mixcloud and give him a follow if you like soccer and hip hop.

Easy vs. Right

A wise man* once said “We all must face the choice between what is right and what is easy.”

I coach a team of 7 & 8 year olds in what most would consider a “rec” league (we don’t charge an arm and a leg so it’s apparently not as “serious”. But the work these kids put in, their passion for the game, and the joy on their faces when they play makes me want to throat punch people when they talk about my team like it doesn’t matter. But I digress…). I only have 5-8 kids on my team at any one time, someone else schedules the games, we don’t do orange slices/post-game snacks, we wear t-shirts for uniforms…it’s pretty easy to manage the non-soccer specific duties.

But those things are still a HASSLE.

My brother is the president of the club, and I have to listen to him bitch and moan about dealing with coaches/refs/parents/board members/registrar/league president/me/etc.

It seems like a giant NUISANCE.

So if dealing with 8 kids and their parents is a hassle, and dealing with 80 kids and their parents as well as league duties is a bigger hassle, I imagine going a couple steps up the ladder to State Association President is an unfathomable PAIN IN THE ASS.

I have nothing but the utmost respect for anyone willing to dedicate their time to running a state-level soccer association. I’m guessing they spend more time putting out fires than they do actual governance because they get phone calls and emails about the dumbest shit imaginable at all hours of the day. I base this belief off the fact that people are STILL whining about the birth year change put in place by USSF.

When you’re the head honcho change = complaints. Less change, the less hassle you have to deal with. The less people calling and bitching. The less irate emails you have to respond to.

So the easiest thing a state association president can do is maintain the status quo.

Easy.

But is the EASY thing the RIGHT thing?

With less than two weeks until the most divisive USSF presidential election in modern history, the leaders of state associations are being bombarded with phone calls and emails from candidates and their surrogates offering a vision for the future of American soccer (and sometimes different types of “offers”…or so I’ve heard).

They need to decide whether they’re going to do the EASY thing and vote for a status quo candidate, or if they’re going to do the RIGHT thing and vote for the candidate that is trying to create a culture of inclusion and empowerment for every club and association across the country.

The time is now to do the RIGHT thing. Vote your conscience. Vote your heart. Vote for the person who shares your vision of American soccer.

Cast the RIGHT vote, even if it isn’t the EASY vote.

*That “wise man” was Albus Dumbledore, so technically it was a wise woman (JK Rowling) writing those words, but I needed to get to my point, not waste time discussing whether to credit the fictional character saying the words in the book or the author of the book.